Let's stop the pretending: Blatcherism has been an inexcusable missed opportunity to take Britain in a completely different direction (towards Denmark rather than America) and it has significantly contributed to our spiralling rate of mental illness.
I have discovered that citizens of English-speaking nations are twice as likely to suffer mental illness as ones from mainland western Europe.
Specifically, my analysis reveals that over a 12-month period nearly one-quarter (23%) of English speakers suffered, compared with 11.5% of mainland western Europeans.
What explains such a massive difference? It is extremely unlikely to be genes - English-speakers largely come from the same gene pool as Europeans. Indeed, the World Health Organisation study of mental illness in 15 nations, on which my analysis is based, strongly implies that genes play little or no part in explaining national differences in mental illness, and that among developed nations economic inequality is highly significant.
The US is by some margin the most mentally ill nation, with 26.4% having suffered in those 12 months. This is six times the prevalence of Shanghai or Nigeria, a huge discrepancy. Again, genes do not explain it - studies show that when Nigerians move to America, within a few generations they develop American prevalences.
It is selfish capitalism which largely explains the greater prevalence among English-speaking nations. By this I mean a form of political economy that has four core characteristics: judging a business's success almost exclusively by share price; privatisation of public utilities; minimal regulation of business, suppression of unions and very low taxation for the rich, resulting in massive economic inequality; the ideology that consumption and market forces can meet human needs of almost every kind. America is the apotheosis of selfish capitalism, Denmark of the unselfish variety.
So that’s what’s the matter with Kansas. Share prices go up 10% and Joe six-pack loses his marbles. But Mr. James, Denmark? Gloomy, grey Denmark, where even the Foreign Ministry can’t get too enthusiastic? Please, if you must rail against the terrors of American capitalism, can’t you at least tempt us with Paris?
7 comments:
The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems
Certainly seems to have done a numer on you.
We hardly need the Grauniad to tell us how crazy we are.
The most cursory study of the Post-Judd world, for example, clearly shows that everybody is mad except me.
The percentage of depressed people is lower in Denmark et al. because their percentage of suicides is higher.
sushil yadav:
... is causing exponential rise in psychological problems ...
Do you know what exponential means?
That essay by Klaus Rifbjerg, of the Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is a hoot: "Being Danish isn't so bad, and often, amidst thoughts of suicide, a breeze off the water and a stray shaft of sunlight will remind us that life is OK." LOL
[Selfish capitalism is] a form of political economy that has four core characteristics: judging a business's success almost exclusively by share price; privatisation of public utilities; minimal regulation of business, suppression of unions and very low taxation for the rich, resulting in massive economic inequality...
By order: In America, we don't judge a business's success by share price, we judge business success by how much profit is made by the business. Share prices, over the long term, track profit margins with extreme correlation.
And a business's share price has almost no impact on the underlying business itself, except that a high share price makes it easy to raise money. But a low share price doesn't harm a successful company, although it may slow expansion.
In America, privatizing utilities has generally resulted in consumer choice, good customer service, and low prices. Contrast that with a place like Venezuela, where even now, it takes three years to get a phone line installed.
In America, unions aren't suppressed, they're simply unwanted. The reason that Wal~Mart employees aren't unionized, for instance, is because the unions have lost the election every time that a given store's employees have voted on whether or not to join a union.
There's a reason why none of the Japanese auto plants in the American south are union shops, and a reason why only one Whole Foods supermarket is a union shop.
People in America are free to join unions; they just don't want to. This is partly because American unions are "mobbed-up", and also because unions tend to waste union members' dues on political activities opposed by substantial minorities of union members.
In America, the top 5% of wage-earners pay 40% of all income taxes; the bottom 20% pay NO Federal income taxes. If a household has a lot of children, they might pay no taxes even if they have a middle-class income.
Finally, in America, there's no such beast as "massive economic inequality". According to the U.S. Census Bureau, among households headed by a full-time worker, the difference in income between those in the bottom 20% and the penultimate 5% is a socialistic 1:5.
The difference between those receiving welfare and Bill Gates is somewhat larger, of course, but not many people are on welfare, and there's only one Bill Gates, so that kind of comparison misses the American experience entirely.
Duck:
Very nicely put.
Help! I've fallen into wealth, and I can't get up!
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